


Miles to Go (An Infinity to Get There)

by Padraigen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fix-It, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hurt Steve, Hurt Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Infinity Stones, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Protective Tony Stark, Sort Of, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve dies instead of Tony, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-08-11 19:02:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20158534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padraigen/pseuds/Padraigen
Summary: He doesn’t know where he is. He’s standing in warm water that’s ankle-deep, and he has a split second to notice the mountains surrounding him and the orange light that reminds him of sunsets except for that little something that’s not quite right about it. Mostly, though, he notices the figure, no more than twenty feet in front of him. He would recognize it anywhere.Steve.—Steve isn't dead. Tony knows it in his heart, and he is willing to risk everything to bring him back.But that proves to be an infinitely more difficult task when Tony realizes it's not so much a question of saving Steve from the stones as it is saving Steve from himself.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So this, I suppose, is my obligatory EG fix-it fic, except it's a little bit different from the usual. Mostly because Steve dies instead of Tony.
> 
> I had this idea before EG came out, and at the time I honestly thought Steve was the one who was going to die. So the idea only really works if that's the case. But other than that, mostly everything else about the fic is compliant with EG, except that Pepperony are not exactly together. Anymore, anyway. Sorry Pepper, but I just didn't want to have to deal with you. I hope I can be forgiven.
> 
> Let me know if you see any glaring mistakes, as this has not been beta'd, and hmu if you're interested in beta'ing. I could always use the help. Email is on my profile. I think.
> 
> Anyway, carry on with the fic, my dears! Hope you enjoy :)

Tony is in his garage.

It wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, as he’d spent more time in this garage the past five years than he had anywhere else. It’s an almost identical layout to the workshop he’d had in his tower in Manhattan, and it gives him the same sense of serenity his workshop had. The same sense of escape, too.

AC/DC is playing, the music low enough that he can barely hear it over the sounds of his tinkering. A fleeting thought to ask FRIDAY to turn it up is swept away in the much louder chaos that is his mind.

At least six different trains of thought are chugging along at any given point, day or night, echoing like his mind is an endless chasm and colliding as violently as metal on metal, since the day of the battle. Since the day Thanos was defeated.

Since the day Steve…

Well.

The missing half of the universe is back, though. Wanda, T’Challa, Sam Wilson, Strange, the Guardians. Nick Fury and Maria Hill. James Barnes.

Peter.

The world is a mess but at least people have their lost loved ones back. That was why they had done this. That’s what Tony keeps telling himself.

In a drawer next to a workbench rests an Iron Man gauntlet. No one has come for the stones yet, but Tony supposes it’s only a matter of time. Bruce had volunteered to return them back to their proper time and place, and Tony still wonders whether he should’ve fought him on it. Wonders if it should be him instead.

But there’s something in Tony that stops him every time he determines to argue the point. Something cold and painful that tells him if he does that, that’ll be the end. That’ll mean it’s all truly over, and no one else is coming back.

So he just lets the gauntlet sit there and tries to ignore it the best he can. That’s going about as well for him as trying not to think about Steve is.

_I am inevitable._

He can’t stop the memory of Thanos’ words anymore than he can stop the shudder they cause. He can’t help remembering the helplessness, the utter certainty that he’d failed, _again._ That there really was no stopping him.

And he wishes, now more than ever, that he could’ve seen what was coming.

_And I’m just a kid from Brooklyn._

He thought he knew. He was wrong.

In his mind’s eye, Steve is standing tall and deceptively indestructible. His cowl had been ripped off at some point during the battle. His face had been covered in soot and blood, the stones’ light so bright and powerful it looked like Steve was being lit up from the inside out. A perturbing thought has Tony thinking maybe that’s exactly what they’d been doing.

An icy numbness spreads through his veins as he shuts down this particular train of thought. He knows that he’s feeling loss. He’s felt it before. When his parents died, he’d dealt with it by trying to destroy himself and their legacy. When half the universe was snapped out of existence, he’d dealt with it by hiding himself and his family away from the rest of civilization, or whatever was left of it.

Now he’s doing his very best to just not feel it at all.

Five years of barely any communication. Two years of complete radio silence before that.

He opens the top drawer of the workbench he’s sitting at almost unconsciously, giving him no time to stop himself. There, in the very back corner, is the flip phone Steve had given him so long ago. He hasn’t touched it in years, has never used it in all that time. He has a crazy, hysterical idea that maybe if he uses it now, maybe if he calls that number—the only one embedded in the phone—then Steve will be there to pick up. Steve will be alive because he’s waiting, still waiting, for Tony to call. For Tony to need him.

_I promise you, if you need us… if you need me… I’ll be there._

He shuts the drawer with a slam and opens another.

The gauntlet looks exactly as it had when he’d first placed it there. The red paint is dirtied and half-melted off, and there are hairs’ width cracks in the metal. The stones seem duller than he’s ever seen them. He thinks, with a huff of bitter laughter, that he knows how they feel.

Reaching down into the drawer, Tony’s unsure what he’s going to do. He doesn’t get the chance to find out before, right before his eyes, the stones light up, getting brighter and brighter the closer his fingertips come to touching. He knows he probably shouldn’t, but his curiosity gets the better of him even on his best days and right now those days feel as far away as Steve did after the mess of the Accords.

His fingers scrape gently over the metal.

The world lights up around him, like he’s standing in the middle of a baseball field at midnight and the stadium lights are glaring down on him. He has to close his eyes against the burn of it, and then suddenly he’s not in his garage anymore.

He doesn’t know where he is. He’s standing in warm water that’s ankle-deep, and he has a split second to notice the mountains surrounding him and the orange light that reminds him of sunsets except for that little something that’s not quite right about it. Mostly, though, he notices the figure, no more than twenty feet in front of him. He would recognize it anywhere.

Broad shoulders that taper into a slim waist. The stiff way the spine is held. The tilt of the chin, the way the fists are clenched—he knows it. All of it. He can’t see the figure’s face, can’t tell the color of the figure’s hair in the dim lighting, but he doesn’t need to.

_Steve._

The breath is knocked out of him like a punch from an iron fist. The grief that floods him in that moment is enough to make it impossible to breathe.

And then he’s gone, and Tony’s back in his garage fighting back the wave of emotions that threaten to drown him. He rips his hand away from the gauntlet, scrambles back, almost tips over the stool he’s been sitting on. He can’t keep himself from tripping over, however, and his hands hit concrete, just barely stopping his face from kissing the floor.

It’s enough to shock him, to rid him of the too-brief image. He can convince himself it was his imagination, or maybe just a remnant of the stones’ power. It doesn’t matter. Steve’s gone.

_Steve’s gone._

“Tony?”

Tony jerks his head up, all too aware of how his mouth hangs open, his chest rising and falling with each too-fast inhale and exhale, the hot dampness in his eyes that he rapidly blinks away. It’s enough to make him see that it’s only Rhodey, staring at him with a mixture of hesitation and something that he doesn’t want to look at too closely, something that might resemble pity if he thought about it too much.

Rhodey’s never looked at him like that, and it’s what finally pulls him from the stupor he’s been in.

He thought he was over this. He didn’t think he was capable of feeling like this anymore, not after everything he’s done and everything he’s been through. He tells himself it wasn’t supposed to matter this much, but it sounds more like _Steve _wasn’t supposed to matter this much, and— yes, _there’s_ the guilt. It’s only been, what, half an hour since he remembered what a piece of shit he is? Gotta be a new record.

“Tony, you okay, man?” From the tense way Rhodey says his name, Tony gets the impression that it isn’t the first time he’s tried to get his attention. He should probably care more about that than he does, God knows he doesn’t need nor want Rhodey worrying about him. Then again, there’s a lot of things he should probably care about more than he does. And yet.

“Yeah. Fine.” He sniffs as he gets to his feet, and he tries to play it off, like maybe the air’s a little dusty, like he’s repressing a sneeze. Rhodey’s eyes narrow, just a little, and Tony knows he doesn’t buy it, knows he shouldn’t have even bothered for all Rhodey knows him too well. And besides, it’s never been dusty in here. He pushes on, “What’s up?”

It’s a testament to how dubious Rhodey feels about him that he doesn’t push, just says, “Dinner’s ready. Pepper wants to know if you’ll be joining us?” He raises an eyebrow tellingly.

Tony suppresses a sigh that would only make him feel more guilty and looks around his new workshop like something will spontaneously spring out and give him an excuse to not go, because he’s kind of terrible like that. He doesn’t linger on the thought that he still, after five years, thinks of the place as ‘new.’ If he does he’s sure he’ll get trapped in a downward spiral of thought that he definitely doesn’t want to be trapped in.

Instead he says, “Yeah,” and “Give me just a minute.”

Rhodey dawdles, so Tony gives him a look that could only be described as ‘pleading,’ and then he’s gone again. The workshop is the same, untouched, and it’s almost like he’d never been there at all.

The drawer with the gauntlet is still open when Tony turns back around. The relief that Rhodey hadn’t noticed it is almost as strong as the emotion that had flooded through him moments before, and his hand is shaking when he reaches down to close it.

Tony might have an answer for everything, but if Rhodey had asked, he really doesn’t think he’d have had the words to explain that one.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank the fic-helpers at the MCU Stony discord real quick for helping with my questions and giving thoughtful feedback <3 Also, I wanted to get this chapter done tonight and post it quick so it hasn't yet been edited. Hopefully I can get to that tomorrow.

Tony tosses and turns in bed, overly aware of the sharp ache in his shoulder from where he’d pulled it too roughly during the battle. He tries not to fixate on little things like that, though, things that remind him of that day. That remind him of what he’s lost.

There’s a draft in the room that makes him tug the blankets around him tightly, and he curls into them even as he knows in a few minutes it’ll get much too hot for comfort and he’ll just have to throw them off again.

He can’t help thinking of Pepper, of how relieved she must be now that she doesn’t have to share a bed with him anymore. She’d never said anything—she never would—but he’s always been ashamed of his horrendous sleeping habits; crawling into bed in the early hours of the morning, his movements always so careful yet never careful enough. His constant fidgeting. The nightmares.

He knows he can’t have been a pleasant bed partner—and he knew it then, too—so he’d started sleeping in the guest room. When he exhausted himself and his mind shut up for long enough to even be able to sleep, that is. Making the move permanent had been… effortless. So effortless, in fact, that it pained him to think of it. Of how easy it had been to let Pepper go.

Pepper’s not really gone, of course. They still live in the same house together, taking care of Morgan because that’s what they had deemed best. During those five years post-snap, it hadn’t seemed to matter so much.

Now, he questions what he’s doing. Questions if the choices he’s made have been the right ones, questions where he’s going to go from here.

He thinks he used to have plans. Life-changing, world-changing plans.

He doesn’t remember when those stopped mattering.

Dinner had been as dreadfully routine as he’d imagined it would be. Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce, and him all sitting around the table, politely listening as Morgan chattered on about a game Tony had downloaded for her on her StarkPad. Everyone else is gone—he thinks Thor might’ve departed with the Guardians, and he knows Clint returned home to his family.

It’s impossible to stop the flash of Steve and Natasha through his mind, the natural flow of his thoughts carrying through his teammates.

_See you in a minute._

He flings off the blankets, suddenly boiling, and squeezes his eyes shut until all he can see are flashes of light dotting behind his eyelids.

But it’s not enough to stop the images he’d seen before, of Steve standing there in that ankle-deep water, unmoving but alive.

He lets out a strangled gasp, his heart racing, and before he can consciously approve of the idea he’s out of bed and thundering down the stairs, careening into his garage without a care for the racket he must be making.

FRIDAY switches the lights on without him having to ask, and then suddenly he’s crouching beside his workbench, sucking in breaths like he’s just run a marathon. He stares at the drawer handle warily, as if it’s going to bite him if he gets too close, and isn’t that a thought? His lips twitch into a small smile that he doesn’t really feel, and it fades before his breathing evens out.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Doesn’t know what he hopes to accomplish by being near _it_. There are a lot of truths ringing through his head—that he’s obsessive, that he’s guilty, that he should know better by now than to _hope_, that Steve is… that Steve is _dead._

Tony can’t stop the tremor that rolls through his body that leaves him shaking and nauseated. It’s useless, he knows, these thoughts that go round and round his head in an endless spiral. He’s already made his decision, had the moment he left his bed to come down here. There isn’t a thing on this earth that can stop him when he makes up his mind about something he wants to do.

And right now?

He wants to see Steve. He wants it so desperately he almost can’t get the drawer to open from how bad his hands are trembling. But he manages it.

The gauntlet is exactly the same.

Tony lets out a long breath of relief, although he isn’t sure what he’d been expecting. Maybe he’d thought it would’ve magically disappeared and he’d never have this chance to see Steve again. Weirder things have happened.

This isn’t something he wants to dwell on, so he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches into the drawer like he had hours before, this time with actual intent, and holds his breath. He can’t help closing his eyes as he feels his fingers brushing against cool metal.

Nothing happens.

He huffs out an irritated sigh, opening his eyes to examine the gauntlet more closely. But nothing he sees seems out of place, nothing looks different from what it’d looked like that—or, more likely, yesterday—afternoon. He narrows his eyes. Nothing _looks_ different, but he could’ve sworn… He presses his fingers against another part of the gauntlet, and his eyes widen. The metal’s _cool_. He could’ve sworn that it had been warm to the touch when he’d touched it before, but now…

Who is he kidding? He’s probably imagining things, probably has been this entire time. He wonders if lunacy is a symptom of the post-traumatic stress he’s doubtlessly experiencing and then laughs bitterly.

There’s an idea in his head then, and he doesn’t know where it came from, but he latches on to it with the compulsive grasp of a fanatic. It is beyond the measure of stupidity, completely and utterly moronic. He’s seen what it is capable of, what it can do—watched it char the arm of a green behemoth and _kill_ a super soldier—but he doesn’t care. He didn’t think he was capable of being so reckless anymore, but he isn’t surprised. He’s starting to see a pattern.

Before he can think better of it, he’s putting on the gauntlet. It slides on easily, just as it should, just as he made it to do, and it’s hard not to think that it was made _for him_. That it was meant _to be him_.

That doesn’t matter, though. Nothing does. Because suddenly he’s seeing white.

*

When he opens his eyes, it’s to the same orange glow as he remembers from before, the same picture of Steve standing no more than twenty feet in front of him. He’s there for only a split second, barely long enough for a glimpse, let alone to reach out.

He blinks and then he’s standing in an alley, narrow and stinking of refuse and cigarette smoke. He doesn’t get much of a chance to look around or figure out where he is because there’s a voice behind him that grabs his attention like only new and exciting projects in his workshop usually can.

_I could do this all day._

Tony knows that voice, would be able to pick it out in a crowd. He whips around, but he’s not fast enough, and—

—he’s standing in… a plane? He glances around, sees control panels and screens and _blue_. It’s freezing, his threadbare t-shirt and pajama bottoms doing nothing to shield him from the cold. He has only a second to jerk his gaze forward and see a chair in the center of the bridge. But it’s the blond hair just barely peeking out that his gaze locks on and then—

—he freezes, not needing any longer than a split second to recognize where he is.

_Siberia_.

He doesn’t want to look around, doesn’t need anymore proof, doesn’t want to _be here_. It’s a relief when—

—he’s in his living room. It’s not the living room of the new house by the lake, but the living room in the tower. An absurd thought races through his head, there one moment and gone the next, that_ there are no alpacas here_, and it’s almost bittersweet but mostly just ridiculous.

He’s standing behind and to the side of the main couch, and he can just barely see Steve and… _himself. _They’re sitting far closer together than Tony’s sure they ever had before, when they were sort-of friends and Steve was much more alive. The TV’s on, but it’s blurry, and he can’t work out what it’s playing before—

—he’s back where he started. Steve hasn’t moved an inch. Tony wants to call out, wants to know if any of this is real or if it’s all in his head, if he’s still in his bed dreaming of Steve because that’s all he has left of him now. His mouth won’t open, though, like he forgot how to work his jaw, but he only has a moment to panic before—

—he’s crouched on the floor of his garage, panting hard and staring at the gauntlet he’s still wearing.

“Daddy?”

“Ah!” Tony startles and sits back, too quickly, banging the back of his head sharply on the workbench, his shoulder twinging. “_Shit_,” he mutters, automatic. He looks up as he raises his hand—the non-gauntleted one—to carefully rub his head, prodding gently at the spot that aches. Morgan is there, so impossibly small in just her PJs, her eyebrows raised and her mouth open in an ‘o’ of surprise. “What are you doing up?”

Her mouth twitches into something resembling a sheepish smile, but he isn’t fooled. Not for a second.

“I heard you going down the stairs.”

Tony shuts his eyes, and the sigh he lets out is exasperated—more by himself than by her. He should’ve been more careful, but… But.

“Well, it’s way past your bedtime little missy, so chop, chop,” he claps his hands together, briefly forgetting about the gauntlet that he’s still wearing until his hand collides with the metal, and stands. “Back to bed. What would your mother say if she knew you were up?”

Morgan lets out a little squeak but doesn’t actually move to leave. Tony’s sure she’s just putting on a show because she knows he wouldn’t ever really tell Pepper about this. He isn’t _that_ much of an idiot.

“What are you doing?”

The question surprises him enough that he pauses in his step, halting the progress he’s made towards her. “I’m… working. Obviously, what does it look like? But it’s top-secret, very hush-hush, so you can’t tell anyone what you’ve seen. Especially not your mom. Lives depend on it.” Okay, so maybe he’s laying it on a little thick. But at least Morgan seems to be going for it, if her grin is anything to go by.

She comes closer, her hand raised as if to touch the gauntlet he _still_ hasn’t taken off, but she stops just shy of it and brings her hand to her mouth instead to bite at her fingernails. He should really tell her not to do that. Pour some pickle juice on her nails, nip the habit in the bud. He’ll have to remember that, for later. Request FRIDAY remind him, or something.

Tomorrow.

“What’s that?”  
  
“It’s an Iron Man gauntlet. You know that, you’ve seen it before.”

Morgan turns wide, brown eyes on him that have phantom aches seizing his chest for some reason. “What’s it for?” she asks, so innocently. She’s seen the stones, must have, and he can tell she knows something’s up. God, but she is _so smart_.

It’s so _annoying_, but hell if he isn’t proud of her.

“It… it’s for—” he’s stuttering, like he doesn’t understand the question, and maybe he doesn’t. What _is_ it for? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that, “It’s important.”

And that is definitely the right answer. The only answer, really. It’s important because _Steve_ is important, and what else is there to know?

He takes off the gauntlet and turns to set it on top of his workbench. “What’s with the twenty questions, anyway? I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d sell all your toys, you know.”

Morgan’s giggling as she races out of the workshop, Tony following at a more sedate pace. He tucks her in, puts her to bed feeling something warm settle in his chest. It isn’t peace, or contentment—not really—but it feels like it _could_ be, eventually, and that’s enough.

When he pads down to his workshop for the last time that night, it’s to put the gauntlet back inside its drawer. Nothing happens when he touches it, but that’s okay. He knows now that he hadn’t been imagining things at all. Steve had been there, Tony knows it in his heart. And for whatever comes next, _that’s enough_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always welcomed and appreciated! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](https://padraigendragon.tumblr.com/)!


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